door was
once opened he would lose her--he would have to go forth and seek his
dinner and she would remain in the house; whereas, barred out of the
house, she would be bound to him--they would be thrust together into
exquisite contingencies, into all the deep potentialities of dark
London.

"Dash it!" he said, first fumbling in one waistcoat pocket, and then
ledging the portfolio against a step and fumbling in both waistcoat
pockets simultaneously. "I must have left it in my other clothes."

It is doubtful whether his conscience troubled him. But he had a very
exciting sense of risk and of romance and of rapture, as though he had
done something wonderful and irremediable.

"Ah! Well!" she murmured, instantly acquiescent, and without the least
hesitation descended the steps.

How many girls (he demanded) would or could have made up their minds and
faced the situation like that? Her faculty of decision was simply
masculine! He looked at her in the twilight and she was inimitable,
unparalleled. And yet by virtue of the wet glistening of her eyes in the
cathedral she had somehow become mystically his! He. permitted himself
the suspicion: "Perhaps she guesses that I'm only pretending about the
latchkey." The suspicion which made her an accessory to his crime did
not lower her in his eyes. On the contrary, the enchanting naughtiness
with which it invested her only made her variety more intoxicant and
perfection more perfect. His regret was that the suspicion was not a
certainty.

Before a word could be said as to the next move, a figure in a grey suit
and silk hat, and both arms filled with packages, passed in front of the
gate and then halted.

"Oh! It's Mr. Buckingham Smith!" exclaimed Marguerite. "Mr. Buckingham
Smith, we're locked out till father comes." She completed the tale of
the mishap, to George's equal surprise and mortification.

Mr. Buckingham Smith, with Mr. Alfred Prince, was tenant of the studio
at the back of No. 8. He raised his hat as well as an occupied arm would
allow.

"Come and wait in the studio, then," he suggested bluntly.

"You know Mr. Cannon, don't you?" said Marguerite, embarrassed.

George and Mr. Buckingham Smith had in fact been introduced to one
another weeks earlier in the Grove by Mr. Haim. Thereafter Mr.
Buckingham Smith had, as George imagined, saluted George with a kind of
jealous defiance and mistrust, and the acquaintance had not progressed.
Nor, by the way, had George's d